Club baseball ended a five-year victory drought with a 6-2 win over the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania.
The team is composed of mostly seniors and upper classmen who had been practicing their whole college careers waiting for a winning season to come.
The team has struggled to even play more than three games since Covid struck. Last year looked promising but the rain and weather said otherwise. So, it really felt like now or never for the seniors.
“This season means a lot. It is a lot of our last years here at Neumann, and for me it’s likely the last time I get to play competitively,” said senior Austin Talbot.
Talbot has played baseball for 17 years and expressed how it would be a great to get to play a game one last time knowing it’s the last versus having it be his last time four years ago and not knowing Covid would come and end it for him.
Talbot also said that although they have not been able to play much, when they do play, they get beaten badly.
“I stay because of the team I play with. The numbers are not high, but it has still been enjoyable playing with the team and the coach,” he said.
His hopes along with the rest of the team are to finish on a high note this season and hopefully walk away with great memories and eight games played, which would be all the games they have scheduled.
“It’s important to me to stay with the team this year because there are a group of guys that have been loyal to the program. I owe it to them to keep going. It’s been frustrating over the last few years with the pandemic, rainouts, rescheduling, etc. But as an alumni, I enjoy coming back to connect with our student athletes,” said Head Coach Eric Rosen.
Luckily for those seniors, they beat UPenn. They spilt the series with them but for those seniors, that was the first time they had seen the team leading since being here. Although they dropped the first game, giving up 6 runs in the 7th inning losing 14-8, they held a lead for a good amount of that game and in the second game of the day they managed to see off UPenn.
“It is an amazing feeling to win on senior night. I think a lot of us came into this season thinking we would get steamrolled like we did previous years, but to see today and us winning for the first time in 5 years, there is a promising future for the freshman that came in this year,” said Talbot.